Field of the Invention
The present invention and method relates generally to an article configured to be placed on a tennis players arms to maintain the tennis players arms in the proper position throughout a tennis swing.
Background
Tennis is a very popular game in the United States, even more so globally. More than 17 million people play tennis in the United States. Having a good tennis swing is one of the main key components to master the game of tennis. Unfortunately, most players are not born with the skill to have a good swing but it can be developed. The problem in the field of tennis is that having a proper swing or technical importance is ignored way too often. The coaches ask the players to rely on their mental toughness to get the ball in the court, which is very stressful and time consuming to improve in tennis. Not only that, the quality of tennis is very low when the game is played just to get the ball over and into the court without any strategy. The method and the apparatus can help the player by helping them improve their tennis swings.
Currently there are a number of solutions and methods for teaching and fixing a particular shot and swing in tennis. One of these solutions attempts to fix a swing with an object to place on the body, but these solutions fail to meet the needs of the industry because any object on a body, drops, moves, and rolls on the tennis court when reproducing a swing. The time to put the object back into position to practice a repeated stroke takes too much time and also can be dangerous in tennis because the player is not always stationary when hitting a moving tennis ball, which can cause ankle sprains and other injuries when the player steps on the object/ball. Therefore, there currently exists a need in the industry for a device and associated method that holds the ball in position it is originally placed. Different solutions attempt to fix a swing by putting a complicated device on the player, but these solutions are similarly unable to meet the needs of the industry because they are bulky, complex, expensive, and takes multiple people to utilize because of difficulty of putting the device on the body. Still other solutions seek to aid fixing a particular stroke or swing in tennis by putting on a device, but these solutions also fail to meet industry needs because the user does not get enough feedback and it restricts too much movement to replicate the “feel” of using a particular group of muscles and parts of the body to generate a proper swing. Lastly, there are no other methods and apparatus that are created to aid in fixing common mistakes of all the shot in the game of tennis.
In the game of tennis, nearly all levels from beginners to pros have common swing problems and the method to teach the players the correct swings are not obvious in any way for someone to figure out in a short amount of time and takes too long to find the correct positioning to feel comfortable for the players. With this coaching method and apparatus, it solves a lot of the improper swing techniques in tennis. The apparatus and method can be used to aid in fixing the following but not limited to: one-handed forehand, two-handed forehands, two-handed backhand, one-handed backhand, forehand volley, backhand volley, one handed forehand slice, one-handed backhand slice, overhead/smash, and the serve.
Also most of the players cannot afford to have a coach next to them all the time to fix their swing to a proper swing. Even when taking lessons and coaching to fix the swing, the players swing goes back to the original improper technique because they don't have any feedback of what they are doing in practice by themselves. Even if the player misses the ball as long as the player could feel what they did wrong they can fix it by adjusting or changing a part of their swing on their own. This is where a talented player knows the feel what they are doing on their swing. Unfortunately, not all players have that kind of talent. With the apparatus and the method associated with the apparatus, the player is able to feel if the ball was touching their body or not throughout the swing thus giving constant and instant feedback while reproducing tennis swing. Which also creates less frustration to be able to self-correct a swing instead of not knowing what to do with their swing.
Another problem is that in the field of tennis, the method used to teach or coach players' swing is a very abstract process. Most of coaches know when they see a good proper swing but do not understand why and how to teach the players with improper swing to be able to reproduce a proper swing. This method and apparatus helps the coaches fix common symptoms of multiple swings in tennis without having to understand the full extent of the scientific knowledge of tennis or tennis specific terms nor having the experience of hitting the tennis ball with a proper swing. Not only that, it will help large tennis academies teach tennis swings and fix swings consistently to many players with the method and apparatus instead of a single coach coaching a small group of players. Therefore, there currently exists a need in the industry for a device and associated method that aids in fixing and teaching tennis swings.
Surprisingly, similar problems exists at the top level pro tennis players on tour. The problem is that changing their swing takes a long time to fix and master to be able to compete with the changed swing. With this method and the apparatus, players are given the “feel” instantly if they are not in the correct position and the player can memorize the “feel”, not only with muscle memory, but with their brain actually controlling the signals to the muscles. This “feel” is important because the player themselves cannot see themselves reproducing the swing without video recording their swing. Even with the video recordings, they constantly have to adjust where to put the arm or what angle the arm has to be in by watching and repeating constantly which is more time consuming. The apparatus helps position the arms to the correct position instantly by limiting too much movement, keeping adequate space in between body parts, or not allowing them to touch the ball with a certain body.
Lastly, the classic tennis style and teaching methods decades ago, had to limit the fast and powerful swings because it was played with wooden rackets. The wooden rackets had too much flex so the players swinging the wooden rackets had to slow down the racket speed and was played with different technique and swings. In modern tennis, the racket technology has made the rackets much stiffer than the wooden rackets in the past, thus players are able to use powerful fast swings to hit the ball. This makes the arm positioning and using the correct technique more important to hit with accuracy. The method and the apparatus can aid in teaching and help players to “feel” how to put the arms in the correct position to create faster racket speed.